Browsing Wikipedia in early 2024, you might have stumbled upon an article about Lake Moeris and encountered this opening paragraph. Chances are if you had, you’d have kept browsing. (If it had been me, I’d have clicked on endorheic, to discover what that word means.) Lake Moeris (Ancient Greek: Μοῖρις, genitive Μοίριδος) is an ancient … Continued
There’s far more to figs than the filling in your Fig Newtons. Beyond the domestic fig, there are hundreds of wild species, from banyans, to strangler figs, to the creeping fig that’s used as an alternative to ivy in warmer climates. And in tropical forests, figs are keystone species. Most trees produce their fruit in … Continued
Africa is the birthplace of our species, and the place human civilization began, but outside of Egypt and the Nile Valley, how much do you know about ancient archaeological sites anywhere on the African continent? Over the past decade, Kate Grillo’s classes have worked to fix that problem, at least on Wikipedia. Initially at the … Continued
Wikipedia assignments come in all shapes and sizes, but some of the most interesting are from classes that have found an open lane and return to it year after year. Directing your students to the same topic area term after term allows them to build upon the work of your previous classes. That can have … Continued
A few decades ago, exoplanets were like alien life — their existence seemed likely, but none had ever been detected. But since the first confirmed discovery in 1992, the existence of over 5,000 exoplanets has been confirmed. While direct observations of exoplanets are impossible, it’s possible to estimate their size and mass. Using the planets … Continued
I’ve been a Wikipedian for 18 years. Were it a person, on Friday August 26, my account will be old enough to vote. Over the years, my role has changed from new user to administrator, from pure volunteer to that odd dual role of volunteer editor and Wiki Education staffer. In the last year I … Continued
In an idealized vision of the world, judges in common law countries are unbiased actors who rely on expert knowledge and detailed research to craft rulings which accurately reflect both the substance of the written law, and the body of precedent that applies to their jurisdiction. A judge must be proficient at doing their research … Continued
Human-dominated landscapes tend to be homogenized in a that’s often invisible to us. Tourists visiting anywhere in the tropics expect a see lot of the same things — coconut trees, mangos, pineapples, bananas. Despite the fact that the tropics are some of the most biologically diverse regions of the planet, we see this artificial aggregation … Continued
Life, as we are inclined to picture it, relies on the existence of diversity in the world. The existence of different species makes it possible for living things to exploit different ways of making a living in the world. And that all stems from lineages to split and generate new species. Major waves of diversification … Continued
